What Does Acts 9:35 Mean?
And all who dwelt at Lydda and Saron saw him, and turned to the Lord.
Key words are shown with the Hebrew or Greek and what each word meant.
Selah Decoded Version The Selah Decoded Version renders what the Hebrew and Greek words meant to the people who first heard them.
King James wording
King James Version
And all that dwelt at Lydda and Saron saw him, and turned to the Lord.THE KEY
One person’s restored life becomes a sightline that turns many toward the Lord.
THE MEANING
A visible restoration reaches beyond the person who is healed: what you perceive in another can redirect your own attention toward the Lord. Turning appears here as a response to restoration encountered in a living body.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
This undoes the belief that healing ends with the person who is healed; here, its visible result becomes a communal turning toward the Lord.
THE ROOT
ἐπέστρεψαν
epestrepsan
GROWS FROM
στρεφ-
streph-
Turn, twist, or change direction; with the prefix ἐπι-, turn toward or return.
“turned” in this verse is epestrepsan. The verb names a change of direction, not merely an inward opinion. The restored life before the crowd becomes the point from which many turn toward the Lord.
ALSO GROWS
epistrephō: Turn back, return.
ἐπιστρέφω
This is the verb used in the verse: the crowd’s response is a directed return toward the Lord.
apostrephō: Turn away, reject.
ἀποστρέφω
The same turning seed can describe movement away; here the direction is toward the Lord.
strephō: Turn, twist, change direction.
στρέφω
The base verb makes the movement in “turned” concrete: a change in where one faces and goes.
ἰδόντες
idontes
GROWS FROM
ὁρα-
hora-
See, look at, perceive.
“saw” in this verse is idontes. The people perceive the evidence of Aeneas’s restored life, and the next verb gives that perception a direction. Seeing and turning are linked: the visible restoration becomes what opens the way for a communal response.
ALSO GROWS
horaō: See, look at, perceive.
ὁράω
This is the verb’s lexical form and carries the sense of taking in what is before the eyes.
horama: Vision, something seen.
ὅραμα
This related word names what is perceived, echoing the public evidence that precedes the crowd’s turn.
horatos: Visible, able to be seen.
ὁρατός
Aeneas’s restored condition is visible to the people who respond.
THE PATTERN
When restored life becomes visible, its witnesses are drawn into a new direction toward God.
And he returned to the man of God, he and all his camp, and came, and stood before him. And he said, Look, now I know that there is no God in all the earth but in Israel. Now therefore, please, take a blessing from your servant.Then many of the Jews who had come to Mary, and had watched what Jesus did, leaned their weight into him.Turn around, then, and turn back, so that your shortcomings may be wiped away, and the times of breathing again may come from the face of the LORD.THE THREAD
Turn around, then, and turn back, so that your shortcomings may be wiped away, and the times of breathing again may come from the face of the LORD.Acts 3:19 uses ἐπιστρέφω (epistrephō, “turn back” or “return”), the same Greek verb rendered “turned” here. Its promise of refreshing opens up the turn in Acts 9:35: a visible restoration becomes a way for many to return toward the Lord.
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